September 16-22, 2004

city beat

Corner Man

the greatest of some future time: Jenkins takes pride in helping North Philadelphia youngsters find their way in a rough world. His protoges will take to the ring in next week's Lucien Blackwell Amateur Boxing Tournament. Photo By: Michael T. Regan

Fred Jenkins makes sure boxers — both aspiring and accomplished — have a home at his North Philly gym.

by Benjamin Herold

He doesn't think twice about having to stand on the dented metal chair just to reach the speedbag. He could care less that his "ABC Gym" T-shirt hangs well below his knees. And, he doesn't mind that his punches, even those with all 65 pounds behind them, barely register with the heavy bag. Ten-year old Kyseem "Grasshopper" Roberts vows that no matter who he's matched up against in next week's Lucien Blackwell Amateur Boxing Tournament, he's "gonna whup on him in the first round, then whup on him again in the second round and the third round."

Grasshopper is right at home at the Athletic Boxing Club's home in the North Philadelphia's Athletic Recreation Center. In 2003, a summer trip to the center's swimming pool ended with his father having to track him down and drag him out of the gym. A year later, Grasshopper's quick hands and infectious energy are matched only by his navigation skills. As powerful men three times his weight punish the heavy bags in simulated matches and pummel each other during intense sparring sessions, he weaves through the forest of their legs, bounding toward his next station.

Recreation leader Fred Jenkins and his fellow coaches keep Grasshopper — and dozens of other boxers, including some of the city's best amateurs — coming back three days a week or more for a steady diet of shadowboxing and sit-ups.

body blow: Grasshopper lines up the heavy bag as Jenkins (right) and one-time IBF champ Charlie "Choo Choo" Brown monitor his progress. Photo By: Michael T. Regan

From the battered desk near the gym's entrance, Jenkins calls out instructions, yelling for a novice to keep his chin down or demanding that an exhausted pro keep throwing punches until the round ends. Jenkins also makes sure that ABC's future and its past remain well-connected. The gym is a living testimony to the neighborhood homeboys who have passed through on their way to great things.

"When I first came in here, I was just like, "Wow,'" says Howard Ballard Jr., 20, his eyes opening wide at the memory.

It would be difficult for any aspiring 13-year old boxer from the neighborhood to make it through the crumbling corners of Brewerytown and into ABC without being inspired. Step inside today, and you're greeted by the looming, larger-than-life poster of a scowling Zahir Raheem, a placard announcing Charlie "Choo Choo" Brown's 1984 title fight and the large banner that welcomed David Reid home after he won the only gold medal for the 1996 U.S. Olympic boxing team. Such surroundings make it sound more like a plan than a dream when a 16-year old like Roberts' brother "Easy" Eric Christmas says, "I want to win a title so I can buy my mom and dad a new house."

Across the city's recreation centers, the past and the present of Philadelphia amateur boxing are similarly intertwined. Beginning Monday, the full spectrum will be on display at the Blackwell Tournament. Everyone from 11-year-olds to adults and Junior Olympians to Golden Gloves winners will go toe-to-toe for three days. Outside the ring, local legends and rec center veterans like Eugene "Cyclone" Hart, Harold Fulton, Mitchell Allen, Elvin Thompson, and Jenkins will continue doing what they've been doing for years. And teaching boxing is just a part of it.

"What makes me feel good about what I do?" asks Jenkins, 48. "When I come in this facility, and a little kid comes up to me and says that somebody is bullying him, or says that he wants to get something to eat, or says, "Could I train?' and I'm there to give him that service. It's just amazing, because I got his attention for 10 minutes, and I can reach that individual."

Jenkins has spent parts of four decades using boxing as a vehicle for reaching people. He's fought as an amateur and a pro. He's trained rambunctious 12-year-olds, Olympians and rambunctious 12-year-olds who became Olympians.

As a trainer, he's equal parts tough love and unwavering support. He doesn't make suggestions; he gives orders. Twelve-year-old boys with a school year's worth of pent-up energy sit on their hands with only a glare from Jenkins. At his four-word command, a ring full of kids forms a quickly moving, well-coordinated circle, breaking off the quick punch combinations that he calls out.

Talk to any fighter at ABC — more tellingly, talk to any neighborhood kid, boxer or not — and they'll tell you that Mr. Fred don't take no stuff. But at the same time, everyone seems to know Jenkins and his staff are there for them in ways that too many other people aren't.

"When things went wrong, he was always around," says Ballard. "He has always let me know right from wrong. He's always been straight up. He's never beat around the bush with me, he always came straight with me. That's the type of person you need."

Boxing has allowed Jenkins to travel the country, but his heart has never left the block bounded by 26th, 27th, Master and Jefferson streets. Perhaps its because he doesn't have to reach far into the surrounding neighborhood to find kids who need his help, just as he doesn't have to delve deep into his own history to understand the help they need.

Jenkins came of age during the gang warfare that scarred North Philly. Known as "Herk" (because of his Herculean build), he spent his early teens running with the "28-O" gang from the 28th and Oxford area. After 43 juvenile arrests, Jenkins finally landed in the Glenn Mills Reformatory on robbery charges. After 18 months there, he was 15 years old. Unable to attend Benjamin Franklin High School because of his juvenile record, Jenkins ended up under constant scrutiny at Overbrook, but the neighborhood Athletic Recreation Center gave him a place to be.

Before long, he was training regularly alongside fellow teenagers Jerome Jackson and Charlie Brown. Brown, 46, cocks a defiant eyebrow when he remembers what first brought him into the gym 33 years ago: "I got tired of people picking on me 'cause of my name."

The rec's relatively new Athletic Boxing Club was lonely at first.

"It wasn't nobody around. I thought the gym was mine, because I was the only one here. Then other people started coming, and I sort of got a little bit jealous."

Before long, he brought Ben Franklin classmate Jerome Jackson along. Brown, still looking out for his friend, glosses over the details of that day, but with some prodding, Jackson fills in the story.

"I had got in a fight that day, and a dude popped my jaw. Charlie said, "Silk, you need to go to the gym,'" he recalls.

The pair quickly linked up with Jenkins, who they knew from the neighborhood.

"Fred, he was a street guy, street thug. I just knew him from seeing him with the guys in the street, but I never saw him be a bad guy. I never saw that in him," Brown says.

Eventually, "Herk" Jenkins, "Silky" Jackson, and "Choo Choo" Brown went on to professional boxing careers. While Jackson's and Jenkins' time as pros were cut short, Brown had an extended career that included a brief stint near the top.

With Jenkins working his corner in Atlantic City, a 25-year-old Brown defeated Melvin Paul in 15 rounds to claim the vacant International Boxing Federation lightweight championship in 1984.

"[Paul] definitely came to fight. He was a steady comer, he came right at you. So I figured I'll box him," Brown recalls while pantomiming his peek-a-boo style. "Both hands is right there in front of you, but you don't know which is coming first."

Indeed, Brown floored Paul in the first round with a left hook to the body and again in the fourth round with a right to the chest. A true Philly fighter, it was Brown's heart as much as his hands that won the title for him.

In the final round, Paul hit him with such a crushing right that Brown couldn't remember. Nevertheless, he managed to get up and stay up, even landing some solid shots before the final bell. Brown and Jenkins hoped to use the championship to catapult Brown, then 23-2-1, higher in the rankings of the better-established World Boxing Association and World Boxing Council. Their ultimate aim was a unification tournament involving WBA champ Ray "Boom Boom" Mancini and WBC champ Edwin Rosario. That plan was derailed, however, when Brown lost his next fight to then-undefeated Harry Arroyo by a TKO in the 14th round. (Looking back, he says the referee stopped the fight too quickly.)

He won only three more bouts and eventually lost his last eleven fights before retiring in 1993. "Things didn't go to well because of the frame of mind I was in," he says. "It got to the point where I just didn't give a damn.

"I've been hurt by the fight game a little bit. I expected something from it. I've been to the top, and I even took the city to the top by my being from here. It didn't last long, but I got there."

Jenkins also looks back on his own fight career somewhat ruefully.

"I didn't know how good I was," he says. "Now I regret [hanging up my pro career, after only five fights], because I might could have become a world champion."

Even while fighting as a pro, Jenkins was changing from fighter to trainer and troubled young man to role model. By the mid-'70s, he started volunteering time at the Athletic Recreation Center, where, he says, "Every night there was a gang fight. Doors opened at 2, and by 5 they were fighting [and there were] police all around the building."

ABC had been started in 1969 as part of a city-led effort to pilot boxing programs at recreation centers. The aim was to calm gang tensions.

After years of helping out wherever he could, Jenkins began formally working at the center through Mayor Frank Rizzo's Youth Leadership Program. Eventually, the gang violence eased and the rec center started to become a safe haven for neighborhood residents. Jenkins says a calm atmosphere has emerged out of what he describes as the center's well-enforced rules and regulations.

He's also proud of the way that ABC has become a place that people can always return to. Brown, never having found his hoped-for payday but not ready to hang up the gloves, resisted Jenkins' advice to retire in the early '90s. When asked now about the end of Brown's career, Jenkins says, "You can only go so far in the fight game before you're not 100 percent anymore and you can't do all the thing you're used to. I said he shouldn't fight no more, that he should retire before he got hurt."

Brown didn't see it that way, and he ended up losing his last six fights under a different trainer. He eventually moved to New Jersey and then to central Pennsylvania but recently returned to North Philly. It's been, at best, a mixed blessing. Brown finds it hard being surrounded by the drugs and violence that plague his old neighborhood, but as he searches for work, helping out at ABC eases a sometimes painful re-entry.

"The man got a good heart," Brown says of Jenkins. "He dealt with me, even when I had problems."

All of ABC's successes have come only with significant toil. After working in the Youth Leadership Program, Jenkins became a part-time maintenance man and for several years ran the boxing program as a volunteer. At one point, he was temporarily transferred to another facility. After his 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. shift, he would come to ABC and stay until 9 p.m. He's been a recreation leader since 1990.

"What do I worry about? Kids not showing up the next day," he says. "When they leave, they go out into a very mean society, a very mean atmosphere. There's a whole lot of good people in Philadelphia, but all the bad people is always out in front. And when kids leave here, and they go out there, it's just a scary situation."

To get the respect and trust of the kids, says Jenkins, is almost impossible. As with adults, however, a child's hard-headedness has no bearing on Jenkins' openness to him.

"Kids [who come in here] have my trust all the time. They get it automatically," he says. "It's just a natural thing. Kids need to be protected. Even disruptive kids need to be protected, even bad kids need to be protected."

All this means that for Jenkins, the hours and the occasional heartache at ABC aren't likely to let up anytime soon. He readily endures them both, though, because of the ways that the gym's past and present feed each other.

Around two weeks ago, Reid donated the new ring that is going to be used for the tournament. Brightly colored and elevated three feet off the floor, the new ring will be broken down and moved to the Department of Recreation's Carousel House in time for the tournament's first matches.

"God works in mysterious ways," Jenkins says. "Two weeks ago, we were out of a ring. But eight or nine days ago, I get a phone call from David Reid. He said, "Fred, how you doing? I wanted to see what I can do. I want to send a new ring to your facility.'"

Examples like these genuinely move Jenkins. He knows as well as anyone that there is always a new generation of kids who need a ring to box in, gloves and T-shirts to wear and role models to admire.

Like the other kids in ABC's youngest group, Grasshopper lights up in the presence of his trainers Mr. Fred, Mr. Silk and Mr. Junior (James "Junior" Walker.) The reaction is mutual. After all, the reason these men have spent decades building ABC into a home is because they see more than a little bit of themselves in the kids.

Just watch the gleam in Jenkins' eye when you ask him about Roberts. "Grasshopper is a throwback. He reminds me of "Choo Choo' Charlie Brown and Zahir Raheem. When he gets in the ring, he box like he got some kind of love for it," he says. "At 10 years old, he's a gifted kid. My job is just to keep that gift going."

The Lucien Blackwell Amateur Boxing Tournament is being held at the Department of Recreation's Carousel House, Belmont Ave. and N. Concourse Drive. About 100 fighters are expected to compete in three divisions. For more information, call 215-685-0160 or check www.phila.gov/recreation/carousel.